HAMPSHIRE men who served their country, in many cases more than half a lifetime ago, gathered to see old comrades.

The Royal Hampshire Territorials held their annual reunion lunch at Newburgh House in Winchester. (SEP27) It is the 68th time since the Second World War that the reunion has been held.

The event always commemorates the landings at Salerno in Italy in September 1943. Hampshire Territorials also fought their way across France into Germany in 1944 and 1945.

Three 'D-Day Landers' attended the reunion: Joe Cattini of Fair Oak, Tom Cromie of Winchester and Jack Jenkins of Portsmouth, all in their early 90s.

Another three 'youngsters', aged 89 were veterans of the 7th battalion: Henry Leach, Hedge End; Roy Bush, Windsor; and Gordon Henry, decorated for gallantry, aged 18, with a Military Medal.

To conclude the event, to the tune of the song, D-Day Dodgers, a vegetable swede was borne on a pitchfork to be 'anointed' before being paraded, as the assembled company lustily sang the words of the Farmer's Boy in remembrance of the agricultural roots of the men of Hampshire who went off 'for King and Country'.